Bud Selig to Step Down as MLB Commissioner After 2014 Season

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig will officially step down on Jan. 24, 2015, when his contract expires, MLB said in a news release. Photographer: Jeffrey Ufberg/WireImage

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Bud Selig’s retirement as Major
League Baseball commissioner after next season will end two
decades of stewardship that included recovery from a steroid
scandal and an era of labor peace after losing the 1994 World
Series to a players strike.

Selig, 79, said yesterday he’ll officially step down on Jan.
24, 2015, when his contract expires. A transition plan, which
will reorganize centralized MLB management, will be announced
shortly, the commissioner’s office said.

The pool of potential successors is deep, ranging from MLB
Executive Vice Presidents Tim Brosnan, Rob Manfred and Joe Torre
to team owners or executives such as Dave Dombrowski of the
Detroit Tigers and Derrick Hall of the Arizona Diamondbacks,
said Wayne McDonnell, an assistant professor of sports
management at New York University. McDonnell said he wouldn’t be
surprised if Selig’s replacement isn’t chosen until after next
season.

“When you’re dealing with a sport that generates 7 to 8
billion dollars in annual revenues, with a lot of responsibility
in international growth in years ahead, you have to get the
right personality, the right leader and the right management
model in place,” said McDonnell, who created the “Business of
Baseball” course at NYU.

Selig previously delayed a planned retirement by signing a
two-year contract extension in January 2012.

Labor Peace

That decision came two months after MLB and its players’
union reached a five-year collective bargaining agreement,
guaranteeing 21 straight years without a strike or lockout in a
sport that had eight work stoppages since 1972. Selig yesterday
offered thanks to MLB owners for their “unwavering support”
and to players for giving him “unlimited enthusiasm” about the
future of the game.

“Together we have taken this sport to new heights and have
positioned our national pastime to thrive for generations to
come,” Selig said. “Most of all, I would like to thank our
fans, who are the heart and soul of our game.”

McDonnell said speculation about Selig’s successor could
include internal candidates such as Brosnan, who oversees all of
MLB’s domestic and international business functions including
licensing, sponsorship and broadcasting; Manfred, who oversees
labor relations and human resources, and Torre, the former New
York Yankees manager who is now MLB’s vice president of baseball
operations.

Possible Successors?

While Torre’s name will come up as a candidate, as might
former President George W. Bush, a former owner of the Texas
Rangers, McDonnell said they’re unlikely choices. Torre is 73.
Bush is 67, and McDonnell said he probably wouldn’t be
interested in the long-term rigors of the position.

“This can’t be a short-term fix type of guy,” McDonnell
said. “I see a team president making that jump to the next
level. You’re dealing with a new level of baseball executive
that has a high IQ when it comes to the analytics of the sport,
but also intimately understands the business side. I think
that’s what the owners are going to look for. Plus they’re going
to look for someone they trust.”

Selig, who owned the Milwaukee Brewers, became acting
commissioner in 1992 following the resignation of Fay Vincent.
He was voted into the position on a permanent basis by league
owners in 1998 and, in his 22nd season, is second in tenure
behind Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner, who led
the sport from 1920 to 1944.

Divisional Realignment

He oversaw the realignment of teams into three divisions in
each league, the creation of interleague play and the expansion
of the playoffs with wild-card entries for top non-division
winners. He also helped baseball rebound from the 1994 strike
and implemented professional sports’ most comprehensive drug
program through collective bargaining following an era of
performance-enhancing substance abuse that led to congressional
inquiries.

Selig’s connection to the steroid era in baseball comes
with controversy. In 2008, Cliff Stearns of Florida was among
several U.S. congressmen critical of Selig’s response to the
sport’s drug problem -- terming it “glacial” -- and called for
him to step down. Several days after that criticism, MLB owners
gave Selig a three-year contract extension.

Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell praised Selig for
initiating and fully supporting an independent examination of
the sport. Mitchell’s 21-month investigation led to the 2007
Mitchell Report, which identified 89 players connected to banned
substances.

Mitchell Report

“In the years since I issued the report, I have been
pleased that the commissioner has brought baseball to a
leadership stature on the issue of performance-enhancing drugs
in sports and to an example that now stands out as worthy of
emulation,” Mitchell said in a statement.

The effects of the steroid era were felt earlier this year
when no player -- including record seven-time Cy Young Award
winning pitcher Roger Clemens and seven-time Most Valuable
Player Barry Bonds -- was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame for
the first time since 1996.

The Mitchell Report accused Clemens of using steroids and
human growth hormone in 1998, 2000 and 2001. He was acquitted of
lying to Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs
in June 2012. Bonds, also identified by the Mitchell Report as a
steroid user, was convicted in April 2010 by a federal jury in
San Francisco of obstructing a U.S. probe of drug use by
professional athletes.

Home Runs

Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001 to break the single-season
record set by Mark McGwire three years earlier. McGwire, who’s
admitted to using steroids during his record-breaking season,
also has been denied a spot in the Hall of Fame, as has Sammy
Sosa, who topped 60 homers three times from 1998 to 2001.

Selig has overseen historic economic growth in baseball,
implementing revenue sharing among the 30 major league teams and
a competitive-balance tax on its highest-spending clubs, such as
the New York Yankees. Baseball’s total industry revenue was $1.2
billion when Selig took over in 1992. By 2012, MLB said, revenue
had grown to $7.5 billion.

“His leadership and initiatives have led to heightened
competitive balance, record attendance and revenues, new
ballparks and an era of labor peace unimaginable in the prior
generation,” St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt said in a
statement.

MLB franchises have reached record values during Selig’s
tenure, with the Los Angeles Dodgers selling last year for more
than $2 billion. The San Diego Padres recently sold for more
than $800 million and the Houston Astros for $610 million.

MLB’s Growth

Selig also has presided over baseball’s growth online with
the establishment of MLB Advanced Media, on television with the
2009 launch of MLB Network and globally with the World Baseball
Classic. Atlanta Braves Chairman Terence McGuirk noted Selig’s
role in MLB’s recent eight-year, $12 billion national television
rights renewal with Fox, ESPN and Turner, which more than
doubled annual rights fees.

The past 10 seasons have featured the 10 highest attendance
totals in major league history. In the past 12 years, nine
different teams have won the World Series.

Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, who in 2004 headed
a group that purchased the franchise from Selig’s family, said
Milwaukee is among the cities that might not be home to MLB
teams if not for economic changes instituted by Selig.

“Teams from small and midsize cities can compete as a
result of his innovations and the expanded postseason,”
Attanasio said.